Digital watermarking technology, a form of steganography, encompasses a great variety of techniques by which plural bits of digital data are hidden in some other object without leaving human-apparent evidence of alteration. Many such techniques are detailed in the above-cited documents.
In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, watermarking is employed to facilitate e-commerce transactions. More particularly, watermarking is employed to assure that an on-line purchaser of goods has physical custody of the credit card being charged. Without such custody, the credit card issuer will refuse the requested transaction.
According to another embodiment, a method of commerce over the internet between a user and a merchant is provided. The user is in possession of a document including an embedded watermark. The method includes the steps of: i) extracting identifying data from the watermark, and passing the identifying data to a central site; ii) at the central site, identifying a financial institution identifier associated with the document and passing the identifier and a session ticket to the user; iii) contacting the financial institution via the financial institution identifier and passing the session ticket to obtain an authentication ticket; iv) passing the authentication ticket from the user to the merchant to facilitate a transaction; and v) providing the authentication ticket from the merchant to the financial institution.
In still another embodiment, a method of verifying data is provided. The method includes the steps of: i) digitally capturing an image; ii) computing a hash of the captured image; and iii) comparing the hash with a database of hashes, the database of hashes comprising hashes corresponding to previously captured images.
A system for exchanging data is provided according to yet another embodiment. The system includes a user terminal and a central site. The user terminal includes a watermark reader, and a capturing device to capture an image. The central site includes a database of image hashes. The user terminal communicates with the central site. Also, the reader reads a watermark and computes a hash of a captured image and passes the hash to the central site for comparison with the database of image hashes.
According to another embodiment, a method is provided for commerce over a communications system between a user and a merchant. The system includes a central computer, a user computer, a merchant computer and a financial institution computer. The user computer includes a watermark reader. The various computers communicate via a network. The method includes the steps of: i) accessing the merchant computer from the user computer; ii) launching on the user computer the watermark reader to read a document comprising an embedded watermark, the watermark reader extracting identifying data from the watermark; iii) accessing the central computer from the user computer to obtain a URL for the financial institution computer and a ticket, the URL being identified from the extracted identifying data; iv) passing the ticket from the user computer to the financial institution computer to obtain an authorization; v) upon receipt of the authorization, passing the authorization from the user computer to the merchant computer; and vi) passing the authorization from the merchant computer to the financial institution computer.
A computer readable medium having a data structure stored thereon is provided according to another embodiment. The data structure includes a document identifier, a document type identifier; a hash of an image from which the document identifier and document type identifier were extracted from.
The foregoing and other features and advantages of the present invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.